Share your view: No need to backtrack on education standards

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A growing effort by some state legislators to abandon a set of education standards known as Common Core, fueled in part by tea party opposition to those standards across the nation, is misguided and seems to also be driven partially by a false hysteria that the standards are an effort by the federal government to exert control over local schools.

Last week, the state Board of Education was asked by various tea party groups to backtrack on its 2010 vote to adopt the standards now used by 45 states.

Two bills have been considered by lawmakers that would reverse the board's decision on the standards, but neither has gained traction. Objections range from the fact that the standards were adopted by two unelected boards to a belief that the states' arms have been twisted by the federal government to adopt the standards to more outlandish fears that the standards will lead to social engineering and federal manipulation of public schools.

The standards themselves are politically neutral. (They can be read at corestandards.org.) They are an effort to ensure that students across the nation are prepared for college or a career when they graduate from high school.

In an increasingly global economy where students from South Carolina are just as likely to be competing for jobs or college admissions with students from India and Japan as they are with graduates from Georgia or Tennessee, it makes sense for South Carolina's students have the same standards as students across the country, as long as those standards are sufficiently rigorous. That doesn't make the standards an effort at federal control, and it doesn't make them automatically worse than something that might be created in the state.

The standards in math, reading and language arts outline what students should know, but generally leave it to the individual states to decide how to impart those skills. The standards were not drafted by the federal government and states are not required to adopt them, though the vast majority have.

South Carolina made the right decision in adopting Common Core standards. The state Board of Education and the Education Oversight Committee are appointed by legislators and the governor to make decisions regarding South Carolina public schools. Legislators should not expect that they be involved in every decision about standards or curriculum; doing so could subject our public schools to political whims depending on who is in power or on the hot political issues of the day.

The two bills in the Legislature will undoubtedly be discussed again next year, the second in a two-year legislative session. The health of our public education system in South Carolina demands that they be defeated. A third bill will be up for debate beginning in January, according to a report in The State, that would require legislative approval of any new education standards. That newspaper quoted Rep. Eric Bedingfield as saying people "don't necessarily think that we should allow the federal government or some kind of private entity to define what our educational standards should be."

Bedingfield's fears are unfounded. Though the standards were drafted by an outside organization, state policymakers reviewed them, determined them to be sound and decided to adopt them. That is not an example of external control over state education decisions.

It is disturbing that the heart of the opposition to Common Core resides in the Upstate. Among the most vocal opponents of Common Core, according to a recent report in The State, are Bedingfield, Rep. Mike Burns, Rep. Bill Chumley, Rep. Dwight Loftis, Rep. Mark Willis, Sen. Lee Bright and Sen. Kevin Bryant, all from this region. Another Upstate lawmaker, Sen. Mike Fair, has written op-ed columns in this newspaper decrying Common Core's potential impact on state students.

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais also opposes the standards, and has called them a "one-size-fits-all solution." Such a characterization ignores that, again, states have control over specific curriculum decisions. The standards merely provide a road map to what students should know when they graduate.

South Carolina's public schools need improvement, no doubt. Too many students are not reading at grade level, and reading is a core factor that determines success in school and in life. Too few students are graduating on time, though those numbers have been improving. There are inequities in school funding that put our states' poor rural schools at a distinct disadvantage.

None of those problems revolve around Common Core standards, which actually could help to address the system's flaws, particularly centered on reading and graduation.

Rather than feeding on nationally engineered fears over government control of public schools, legislators should keep an eye sharply focused on genuine education reform that can make our schools better. That would be time more productively spent.

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Share your view: No need to backtrack on education standards

A growing effort by some state legislators to abandon a set of education standards known as Common Core, fueled in part by tea party opposition to those standards across the nation, is misguided and